Author Patricia Cornwell's fascination with death: 'We're drawn to what we fear'

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we're told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they're given. This week he talks to Patricia Cornwell. The Miami-born, Boston-based bestselling author, 63, has sold more than 100 million thrillers worldwide, most notably the series featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta.

'It’s disingenuous to pretend we’re not vain. We are vain!'Credit:Jason Flynn

DEATHWhat is it about death and murder that fascinates you?Just like we are drawn to the shark tank to look the enemy in the face and not have those big teeth sink into us, we like to explore death and violence – all sorts of things that are not safe for us to explore for real. We are drawn to what we fear and what we want to conquer.

How do you ensure that you’re not just writing a murder scene that’s sensational or titillating?I do want to entertain people. The tricky thing, as a writer, is to educate people, too. I want people to be better off for reading my stories. I want them to learn something, to maybe think bigger – not just about death.

For a long time, you were estranged from your father. On his deathbed, he wrote on a legal pad and asked you how work was going. What’s been the legacy of his death, and the way he died, for you?I do not believe that who – and what – we are ceases to exist at death, any more than it began to exist at our birth. My father failed me in many ways [he walked out on Cornwell’s family when she was five]. None of us is perfect. But his spirit and his energy – and my thoughts of him – are actually much stronger now than when he was still here. I feel I’ve made peace with him.

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How would you like to die, ideally?Beamed up by the mothership. I just walk in there and it’s like, “See you later!” [Laughs] I look at death as a transition. It’s not an end.

RELIGIONYou grew up Christian?Well, yes, we were in Montreat, North Carolina, right down the street from [the late prominent evangelical preacher] Billy Graham. When my mum moved us there from Miami, when I was almost seven, one of the reasons she was attracted to this little religious town was that she knew Graham lived there. She felt like that had to be a safe place. It was an extremely conservative, evangelical, Christian town of only 200 permanent residents in the off season. You attended church several times a week, it was very strict. There were rules; you read the Bible a lot. I was quite steeped in all that.

You were previously married to Charles Cornwell; you’re now married to your wife, the Harvard neuroscientist Dr Staci Gruber. Growing up Christian, what did you hear about same-sex relationships?In that little town, there was no discussion of anybody being gay. I mean, you would hear about people who were spinsters living together, but never anybody saying anything more. That would have been quite verboten. People didn’t even have alcohol. You didn’t swear. You played by the rules.

You’re not Christian nowadays. Looking back, what did Christianity give you?Bizarrely enough, it has served me well of late with the work that I’m doing now [her latest thriller, Quantum]. You read and study the sciences of electromagnetic energy, rocket propulsion and what we’re trying to do on other planets, and you start thinking about some of the scientists in the field. Even Francis Crick – the one who [with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins] got the Nobel Prize for discovering the double helix structure of DNA – wondered if this planet wasn’t started by a more sophisticated being. That puts a very different spin on some of the stories we were taught when we were growing up. Whatever your definition of God is, it doesn’t have to be incompatible with your religion. People who take Bible stories literally would disagree, but I like to keep an open mind. I’m not afraid to find out what’s true.

BODIESYou’re in your 60s. How’s your health?Good. I don’t treat myself like I’m in my 60s. The past two years of doing research for Quantum has seen me pilot helicopters and climb up on rooftops to look at big antennae dishes a hundred feet above the ground. I go to the gym almost every day. If I don’t stay healthy and physically able, I’m not gonna be able to do the research that I do.

You weren’t always this match-fit. When you were younger, you had anorexia and depression. Do you ever recover from illnesses like that?Yep. I don’t have an eating disorder any more. Some of that [having anorexia] had to do with beingat an age and stage in life where you feel you have absolutely no control over anything, so what you’re going to do is control your body. If you can’t control anything else, you can at least control what you put in it, or what you don’t put in it. I don’t have those issues any more, thankfully.

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You’ve previously said you’re a fan of Botox, having first tried it in your late 40s. Should everyone try it?I don’t know that everyone should try Botox, but if they want to try it, and it’s not harmful to them, I don’t see any issue. Like anything, if you want to do anything for improvement – working out in the gym; doing aesthetic stuff with your appearance – it’s about moderation and balance. It’s disingenuous to pretend we’re not vain. We are vain! We all want to look good! Who are we lying to? [Laughs] But one thing that’s important as you get older is, I’ve found, not to fight things so much. I’m not going to look 40 any more. There’s no point trying to. I just want to look like a decent 63. My grandmother lived to be 98, and she was still drinking Budweiser and reading The New York Times.